Morgan State University (MSU) has been the recipient of a National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) MBRS Support of Continuous Research Excellence (SCORE) program since 1998. The program was ended on February 28th, 2003, and a SCORE renewal application was submitted in 2002. In June of 2003, the NIGMS awarded a new four year continuation SCORE program award to MSU, which is funded for an additional 4 years, from 2003-2007. The purpose of the SCORE program at MSU is to assist research faculty in developing productive and competitive independent research programs in the biomedical and behavioral fields, and assist the institution in its efforts in enhancing its biomedical research capabilities. Therefore, the long-term goals of the SCORE program and the new Supplement application being submitted are: 1) to sustain a cross-disciplinary research environment that integrates information across biomedical and behavioral disciplines, and is centered around the theme of addressing the health disparities associated with the urban community; 2) to strengthen the research infrastructure that will continue to forge effective collaborative and cross-disciplinary partnerships with other research-intensive institutions, industries, government agencies, and civic/nonprofit organizations; and 3) to continue to support faculty training and development programs. To achieve these objectives, the MSU SCORE program proposes these specific goals: 1) to continue to enhance the research capabilities of the institution; 2) to increase, over the remaining SCORE funded period, the number of research grant support received by faculty in participating departments by 25%; and 3) to increase the number of peer-reviewed publications and scientific presentations by faculty in participating Departments by 50% and 25%, respectively. These program goals and objectives are consistent with the institution's mission of increasing the pool of faculty engaged in competitive biomedical research, and serve as mentors in training of minority student researchers. [unreadable] [unreadable]